The Campus Antiwar Movement to End the Occupation (CAMEO), an student antiwar group at the University of Texas, is being charged with infractions of the UT student organization code, including chalking on campus sidewalks, putting a poster on the MLK statue telling people where to go for a rally with Cindy Sheehan, using amplified sound in an unauthorized location, and having non-student organizations on campus. These are attacks on free speech; what the administration is saying is, "You can have a rally, but be quiet and don't advertise for it."

Change has never happened by people being quiet. If the university punishes CAMEO, they may not be able to have rallies or put fliers up on campus. Given that these "rules" are violated every day by various campus organizations, it seems the university is targeting CAMEO because of its political stance and activism.

Support student activists !

Call the Student Activities and Leadership office at (512) 232-2835 -- or e-mail the officials below -- and ask that all charges be dropped. You should ask for either Cindy Braly, Annemarie Seifert, or Margaritta Arrellano.

And come to the rally on Friday, which is being timed to coincide with CAMEO's disciplinary hearing.

I am distressed to hear that you are contemplating disciplinary charges against a student group, Campus Antiwar Movement to End the Occupation (CAMEO) for exercising their right to assemble and express opposition to the war and to the injustices permeating our society.

Freedom of speech does not mean jumping through hoops in order to exercise it. Freedom of speech does not require permission!

And, for God's sake, chalk on the sidewalk is completely and totally harmless. Should we go around the country punishing or arresting six-year-olds?

No school administration has the right to limit free speech or assembly in any way. You do, however, have an obligation to see that the truth is exposed about the war, military recruitment on campus and the No Child Left Behind Act which requires the militarization of our schools in order to get much-needed federal funds--a sacrifice of the lives of the poor to benefit the profits of U.S. Business interests! The children of the wealthy are not called upon to fight and die for their education!

You should be standing up with these students and demand an end to the occupation of Iraq; military recruiting in the schools; and the end to the so-called "war on terror" that the U.S. Government is using to terrorize and torture the world!

The world is watching what you do! Keep your hands off student rights to free speech and assembly and, yes, chalking on the sidewalk!

Who's side are you on? The students' or the war-mongers'?

Sincerely,

Bonnie Weinstein415-824-8738

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- MORE ON A MAY DAY TO REMEMBER--MAY 1, 2006---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

Be sure and read this very important article explaining theindelible links between the Black, Immigrant and the entireworking class in the "Articles in Full" section below. Thisarticle appeared in The Final Call:

More from the stage of the "Amnesty for All" rally in front ofthe Federal Building in S.F. on May 1, 2006 at 5:00 p.m. Two morespeeches by Ann Robertson and Bill Lumer of the Hands Off Venezuela Committee and:

A short report by Bonnie Weinstein, www.bauaw.org:

The following speeches delivered to the "Amnesty For All" demonstrationin front of the Federal Building, May 1, were available electronically.Many of the best speeches were delivered extemporaneously. I hope that someone recorded at least some of them. Here is what I remember.

The rally featured a third grader, Yomari, a young man who stood tall for the short stature of an eight year old.He told the audience in a strong voice that he was born here but his whole family is full of immigrants and he was tired of people wanting his family to leave.

How many children go to bed at night and worry about loosing asibling, parent or grandparent?

Others spoke of repeated deportations and repeated, hazardous trips back in order to work and to survive.

This was an exceptional rally. The speeches weremore of a dialogue with the audience who responded vocallyto the political points that were being made that made sense to them.

The single unifying thread of all the speeches was that the onlysolution to immigration is general and unconditional amnesty for all immigrants with equal rights for all, citizen or not!

Towards the end of the rally the audience was asked to raise theflags of their origins. People raised flags from all over Latin Americaand even flags from Ireland, Germany, Italy and, I think I saw a Swedishflag out there somewhere. There was even a flag of the earth--probablyfrom Not In Our Name. They were spontaneously brought to the stageand some brought up upon it. It was a tremendous show of pride andstrength and solidarity.

Throughout the rally the crowd was asked what they wanted.They answered, "Amnesty". They were asked "when do you want it?" and they answered, "Now!"

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Speeches By Ann Robertson and Bill Lumer of the Hands Off Venezuela Committee were delivered at the Immigration "Amnesty for All" Rally at the Federal Building, S.F., May 1

Ann Robertson:

I want to say a few words about Venezuela because the struggles in Venezuela can shed some light on our struggle here for immigrant rights.

Many people in countries around Venezuela, especially Colombia, have fled to Venezuela in search of sanctuary. So they became undocumented people in Venezuela. The Chavez government, which is not controlled by the rich but has consistently fought for the rights of ordinary people and the poor, simply granted all of these immigrants citizenship. Why? It was the humane thing to do. Many of these immigrants were in desperate need of help and the Chavez government reached out a helping hand to them in a gesture of human solidarity and common decency. And this leads us to lesson #1: We need a government in this country which is on the side of the working people and poor, documented and undocumented, not a government which is controlled by the rich and which always turns its back on people in need. After all, we are the real majority.

In 2002 the rich oligarchy in Venezuela seized power in a US-backed coup attempt. Outraged, 1 million working and poor people poured out into the streets, surrounded the presidential palace, and demanded the return of Chavez. The oligarchy, which was inside the palace looked out on a sea of angry faces, became paralyzed with fear, and the oligarchy government collapsed. Which leads to lesson #2: When ordinary people like us organize and unite in the millions, as we are doing today, we can become more powerful than even the most powerful government on earth.

And this leads to lesson #3. The US government, fearing our power, will do everything it can to divide us. Dividing us is its main goal right now. It will begin by dividing undocumented people into all kinds of different categories and then make different offers to different categories of people. It will try to get some of us to forget about others of us. Our message to the US government today is this: We refuse to play the game of the rich where we turn our backs on our most desperate brothers and sisters. We refuse to be divided. We refuse to be corrupted. We are building a movement we can be proud of, and that means we will not stop until every single undocumented person in this country receives unconditional amnesty. And we will prevail.

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Bill Lumer:

Why does the US government want workers to be here without legal documentation?

Because the US government (including Democrats and Republicans) is controlled by the people in this country who are employers, not working people. And the employers always want the highest possible profit.

Undocumented workers raise profits:

Undocumented workers have no legal protection against being paid under minimum wage or below the prevailing wage rate. Nor do they have legal protection against being overworked or against unsafe working conditions.

Undocumented workers have no legal protection against not being paid at all for work done.

Undocumented workers have no legal protection against greedy landlords or substandard housing.

US employers can make documented workers compete against undocumented workers for jobs and thereby lower everyone's wage.

Employers always try to divide workers. They fear the power of a united workforce. In the past, the employers divided workers into freemen and slaves. Now they divide us between "illegal" and "legal"workers, or between full-time and part-time workers, etc. In this way employers succeed in making unions weak, and they succeed in keeping the expectations of all workers low.

How to Proceed:

We should remain in the streets and build ever more massive demonstrations.

We should organize action committees in every workplace, neighborhood, and school to plan future actions as was done here for April 10th and today.

The Democrats and Republicans will try to divert this movement out of the streets and into safe areas that are employer friendly like the voting booths for their own personal gain. They will entice us with vague promises, but they will only throw us crumbs so as not to offend the employers who finance them.

As long as we are divided, we are weak. All US workers must support equal rights for all working people in this country and general amnesty for all undocumented workers. We can all look forward to a better world if we stand together under the banner

"An Injury to One is an Injury to All!"

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May 1, Amnesty for All By Carole SeligmanSpeech delivered at the Federal Building, S.F., May 1 for Bay Area United Against Warwww.bauaw.org

They told the students to go to school today. This is school. We are in the school of justice. The immigrants are the teachers, teaching the meaning of justice.

This demand for unconditional amnesty, is for justice, for human rights. Amnesty benefits every worker in this country because, when some working people are declared illegal, so they can't unite and organize, all wages are kept low.

This whole country is made of immigrants who came, often without papers. They built all the wealth of this country.

People crossed borders to get here and work. Profits crossed borders, enriching a tiny group of billionaires. The corporations cross borders every day to take profits from all the countries we came from.

What hypocrites run the government for these corporations! They cross borders to make war on Afghanistan and Iraq. They cross borders to send secret commandos to select targets for bombing against Iran. They crossed borders to try tooverthrow the Venezuelan President.

The government wants to use you to fight these rich men's wars. They want to recruit our children to cross those borders, in exchange for citizenship. We say no!

The very idea that some people are legal and others are not, is a lie to divide working people by national origin and exploit us. We do not recognize the borders set up by the rich to keep workers divided, instead of united against the bosses.

The government has no right to make laws declaring some people "illegal." We say: No person is illegal!

This movement for amnesty is teaching all of the American workers politics. Our power is in these huge, united, demonstrations in the streets. That's what defeated the bill to criminalize immigrants.

Watch out for the politicians who pretend to be our friends. Both Democrats and Republicans are writing laws. None of them are good. These laws try to keep people out, raise higher walls, militarize the borders; they legalize some people and make others illegal, even family members. They pass laws to exploit us. We cannot accept any of these so-called reforms. We say NO!

Amnesty for all!

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Si, Se Puede!By Bonnie WeinsteinSpeech delivered at the Federal Building, S.F., May 1 for Bay Area United Against Warwww.bauaw.org

The United States Government wants all of our children, citizen or not, to fight and die in wars all over the world. They do not send the children of the rich. No! Those children jet set around the world in luxury while our children lay wounded or killed on some bloody battlefield. And for what? To protect and defend U.S. business interests! As a result of the war, American businesses are earning record profits--profits that flow freely across all borders and into the pockets of the bosses who rule this country. American and Iraqi blood--turned into profits for the super-rich!

In order to continue this one-way flow of wealth, the U.S. military needs our children. That's why they are coming to our schools to brainwash and recruit them. They come to our poorest communities and promise our children they can become anything they want if they join the military--even an American citizen. But few ever get any of the benefits they offer.

Right here in San Francisco the military is entrenched in our schools. The School Board says their hands are tied--that the No Child Left Behind Act requires that they allow the military to recruit in our schools in order to get much-needed Federal funds--no matter what we think about it.

This means that, just as it is up to us to organize in the streets to demand amnesty for all immigrants, we must also organize in the streets to demand that the military get out of our schools and stay away from our children! We must make it clear to the government--and the School Board--that we will not sacrifice our children to this government's bloody wars in order to get the full rights and freedoms that we all equally deserve. We want an end to a world with fences and walls and borders and wars! Our loyalty is to justice and freedom and equality, and to general and unconditional amnesty for all immigrants!

If we exercise our power together, here in the streets today, and organize democratically, and in unity and solidarity with each other--and vow stay in the streets together--we will win this demand! And when we win general and unconditional amnesty for all, nothing will be beyond our reach and a new and better world will, finally, be at our fingertips!

Si, Se Puede!

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SCROLL DOWN TO READ:EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTSGENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTSARTICLES IN FULLLINKS ONLY

asumchai@sfbayview.com writes:Please circulate widely (especially to San Franciscans or anyone who knows a San Franciscan):

Stop the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan! Final vote by SF Board of Supervisors Tuesday, May 9, 2pm (rally on City Hall steps 1pm)Call your Supervisor RIGHT NOW, before the vote - phone numbers belowUrge everyone you know to flood their phone lines: Stop the land grab!

This morning, Ann Garrison talked with Supervisor Chris Daly (who's on our side, bless him). Chris said the majority of the Board of Supervisors is likely to vote YES on the BVHP Redevelopment Plan ... UNLESS EACH SUPERVISOR GETS 100 PHONE CALLS FROM VOTERS IN THEIR DISTRICTS.

Why would the Supervisors vote for the ethnic cleansing of BVHP? Chris says these are their main concerns:1) They're reluctant to vote against the only Black member of the Board.2) They perceive the community as divided.

You (and the many other people you urge to call their Supervisors) may or may not want to address these concerns. As for No. 2, surely every Supervisor is aware of how adept City agencies are - Redevelopment most of all - at recuiting people to testify for them.

Quite a few people did testify last week in favor of the BVHP Redevelopment Plan. Several are not residents, and there's good reason to believe that all of them felt compelled or coerced to support Redevelopment. Some sincerely believe the lie that a Redevelopment takeover is their only hope for a job. Nobody, however, trusts Redevelopment. Everyone who supported the Plan said something like, "We will hold Redevelopment accountable!"

Judging from the many, many calls and reports we get at the Bay View newspaper, we believe that Bayview Hunters Point is overwhelmingly opposed to the Redevelopment Plan! Residents are deeply rooted, refuse to be moved and want to develop their neighborhood themselves and determine their own destiny. They oppose this HUGE LAND GRAB of 1,361 acres, home to over 30,000 people, 91% people of color, San Francisco's Black heartland.

Let's flood the Supervisors' phone lines with calls! (We've flooded them with emails, but Chris says emails are often ignored.)Tell them to vote NO on the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan - or, at the least, to table it or refer it back to Redevelopment. (If they need a good reason, we have plenty!)Remember to thank Supervisors Daly and Mirkarimi, who voted NO on the Plan in the Finance Committee. Here are the phone numbers for all 11 San Francisco Supervisors:

Inspired by the millions who poured into the streets on May Day because they too refuse to be uprooted, let's pack the steps of City Hall on Tuesday, May 9, at 1:00 for a rally, then go upstairs at 2:00 for the Board meeting in Room 250!

Thank you all for helping us save our beloved hood! Please forward this message to everyone you know who lives in San Francisco or knows anyone who lives in San Francisco.

Jorge Martin, International Secretary of the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign, to speak in San Francisco 7:00 PM, Wednesday, May 10, 2006Center for Political Education, 522 Valencia, third floor, close to 16th Street BART Station, San Francisco (not wheelchair accessible).Donation: $5/$3 students, seniors, unemployed

Jorge Martin is at the forefront of the international solidarity campaign in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution. He has been actively involved in the revolutionary process in Venezuela and is well known for his analysis of the situation. Jorge has participated in many conferences and meetings on workers control in Venezuela and has participated directly in the movement of factory occupations.

He will speak on the current situation in Venezuela combined with the advances made by the student and union movements. He has recently returned from Venezuela and this will be his only appearance on the West Coast. We strongly encourage everyone interested in the positive developments in Venezuela to attend. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers.

For more information please contact us by email sfbay@ushov.org or call 415-786-1680.

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"BUILDING RESISTANCE"An Anti-War Benefit Evening of Theater, Conscience, and Thought with Not in Our Name

* DAHLIA WASFI MDDr. Wasfi spent her early childhood in Iraq during the 70's. Currently of Denver, Colorado, she recently returned from Iraq in March following her most recent visit.

* BETH PYLESBeth Pyles of Fairmont, West Virginia recently returned from her second assignment with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq on March 21, 2006.

* PABLO PAREDESSan Diego-based sailor turned war resister Pablo Paredes is a member of Iraq Vets Against the War. He recently led the 241 mile "March for Peace" from Tijuana, Mexico that reached San Francisco on March 27, 2006.

A benefit for Not in Our Name Bay Area - an Oakland-based grassroots project dedicated to opposing endless war, attacks on immigrants, and assaults on our civil liberties.

For more info, call 1-800-95-NOWAR x710, or http://tickets.notinourname.net

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Life or Death for Mumia?

On Thursday May 11th there will be a Public Forum sponsored by theMobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamalat the Socialist Action Bookstore located at 298 Valencia Street (Valenciaand 14th Sts.) at 7:30 PM

Speakers will include Pam Africa, Coordinator of the International ConcernedFamily and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Michael Schifferman, Founder of Germany's Mumia Abu-Jamal solidaritymovement. Michael's Ph.D. thesis on the case is one of the most exhaustivestudies yet undertaken, it is the basis of his forthcoming book on the case.

Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel for Mumia's Habeus Appeal, will give anup-to-the-minute report reviewing the State of Pennsylvania's recently filedbrief before the U.S. Court of Appeals

Also speaking will be Jeff Mackler and Laura Herrera, Co-coordinators of theMobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

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Code Pink Mother's Day Vigil May 13-14, in Washington DC

Mother's Day is often seen as if through a soft-focus lens -- a sentimental day of cards and flowers and frills. It has a surprisingly radical history, however. Just as International Women’s Day, March 8, started as a day for women to rise up for peace and justice, so did Mother’s Day in the US begin with Julia Ward Howe’s inspirational 1870 Proclamation against the carnage of the Civil War:

Arise then...women of this day!Arise, all women who have hearts!…Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,For caresses and applause.Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearnAll that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.We, the women of one country,Will be too tender of those of another countryTo allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

Julia goes on to exhort women to leave their homes and gather for an “earnest day of counsel” to figure out how “the great human family can live in peace.” It’s time to take Julia’s words to heart and bring them to fruition in the world. Bouquets of spring flowers may be lovely, but lasting peace is the greatest way to honor all mothers -- past, present and future. Read the rest of Julia's Proclamation here.

Join us this Mother's Day weekend, May 13-14, in Washington DC as we gather for a 24-hour vigil outside the White House. Bring your mother, your children, your grandmother, your friends, your loved ones. Come for the whole vigil (4pm Saturday to 4pm Sunday) or for a few hours! We’ll sing, dance, drum, bond, laugh, cry and hug. We’ll write letters to Laura Bush to appeal to her own mother-heart, and read them aloud. We’ll discuss new ideas for ending the war and building peace. In the final two hours, from 2-4pm on Sunday, we’ll be joined by some amazing celebrity actresses, singers, writers--and moms. For more information & a schedule of events to help you plan your trip, check out the Mothers' Day page on the CODEPINK website. If you can’t join us, you can create or join a Mother's Day activity in your own community. For ideas to help you plan an action check out the resources section of the Mother's Day page.

And whether you’re in the US or overseas, please consider writing a letter to Laura Bush to ask her how she, as a mother, can continue to support a war that is leaving scores of American and Iraqi mothers bereft. Send your letters to laurabush@codepinkalert.org, we’ll deliver them en masse; we'll also take the most compelling letters and turn them into a book, “Letters to Laura.”Let’s make this Mother’s Day, May 14, one where we heed Julia Ward Howe’s original call to action. Let’s come together to build the world we want for our children -- and our mothers.Alison, Dana, Farida, Gael, Jodie, Medea, Rae and Tiffany

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PUSH FOR PEACEMEMORIAL DAY KICKOFFMONDAY, MAY 29, 2006GOLDEN GATE PARK, S.F.(Exact location to be announced.)

Welcome to the Official Push for Peace Site! http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q

The Push For Peace movement is geared to combine the efforts of able-bodied activists to those with special needs or challenges, so that all people can participate and be counted.

The Push for Peace logo shows a Navy veteran in a wheelchair with a peace sign on the wheel, with people marching behind him. It can be seen at:

http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=node/71

Just in case we don't get to modify the map before the weekend, I'll just name our proposed stops. We start, of course with Golden Gate Park, from there we head south to Los Angeles. Turning east we move to Phoenix, then on to Albuquerque. Now it's north to Denver, and east to St Louis. North again to Chicago, and east to Detroit. Continue east to Cleveland, and then NYC if all goes well Central Park (Imagine), culminating at the gates of the White House on July 4, 2006

Push For Peace is a collective of veterans, progressive activists, and everyday citizens working together through education, motivation, and truth to bring America's troops home from the war in Iraq and to help bring healing and peace to our nation. The Push For Peace movement is geared to combine the efforts of able-bodied activists to those with special needs or challenges, so that all people can participate and be counted. The Push For Peace effort will include organized rallies and marches, as well as appearances and performances by high-profile speakers and entertainers, to rally the American people and show them we stand united with our fellow citizen and soldier. It is our goal to grow the base of participants each day resulting in a cross-country Push culminating at the gates of the White House on July 4, 2006. Events will be scheduled across the country leading up to the big Push in July. So keep checking the Push calendar for events near you. Mapping it all out...[Website shows map of stops in US en route to DC on July 4, 2006...bw]

This is a tentative and unfinished P4P route and is only a work in progress. The Push is set to leave Golden Gate Park on Memorial Day 2006 (currently working on permits) and then we will Push our way across the country to arrive in DC across from the White House gathering at Lafayette Park (currently working on permits) on July 4th, 2006. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California Las Vegas Nevada Phoenix, Arizona Denver, Colorado Crawford, Texas New Orleans, Louisiana more states pending... Pushing real Democracy! http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=

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REMINDER TO ALL GROUPS: BE SURE AND POST ALL ACTIONS ANDEVENTS TO WWW.INDYBAY.ORG TO REACH THE MOST PEOPLEAGAINST THE WAR IN THE BAY AREA!http://www.indybay.org

"Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the highest at $9.12. "The 8 dollar per hour Whole Foods employees are being paid $1.12 less than the 1968 minimum wage.

"A federal minimum wage was first set in 1938. The graph shows both nominal (red) and real (blue) minimum wage values. Nominal values range from 25 cents per hour in 1938 to the current $5.15/hr. The greatest percentage jump in the minimum wage was in 1950, when it nearly doubled. The graph adjusts these wages to 2005 dollars (blue line) to show the real value of the minimum wage. Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the highest at $9.12. Note how the real dollar minimum wage rises and falls. This is because it gets periodically adjusted by Congress. The period 1997-2006, is the longest period during which the minimum wage has not been adjusted. States have departed from the federal minimum wage. Washington has the highest minimum wage in the country at $7.63 as of January 1, 2006. Oregon is next at $7.50. Cities, too, have set minimum wages. Santa Fe, New Mexico has a minimum wage of $9.50, which is more than double the state minimum wage at $4.35."

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PRESERVE INTERNET NETWORK NEUTRALITY

Hi,I can't imagine that you haven't seen this, but if youhaven't, please sign the petition to keep our access.Everything we do online will be hurt if Congresspasses a radical law next week that gives giantcorporations more control over what we do and see onthe Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congresshard to gut Network Neutrality--the Internet's FirstAmendment and the key to Internet freedom. Right now,Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing whichwebsites open most easily for you based on which sitepays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn't have tooutbid Amazon for the right to work properly on yourcomputer.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, many sites--includingGoogle, eBay, and iTunes--must either pay protectionmoney to companies like AT&T or risk having theirwebsites process slowly. That why these high-techpioneers, plus diverse groups ranging from MoveOn toGun Owners of America, are opposing Congress' effortto gut Internet freedom.

NO BORDERS! NO WALLS! NO FENCES! GENERAL AMNESTY FOR ALL!OUR HOMELAND IS WHERE WE LIVE!

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QUICKVOTEDo you agree with Charlie Sheen that the U.S. government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks?[So far it's running 83 percent in agreement.]http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/showbiz.tonight/

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REPEAL THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT IN 2007!Check out: 10 EXCELLENT REASONS NOT TO JOIN THE MILITARYhttp://www.10reasonsbook.com/Public Law print of PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 [1.8 MB] http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.htmlAlso, the law is up before Congress again in 2007. See this article from USA Today:Bipartisan panel to study No Child Left BehindBy Greg Toppo, USA TODAYFebruary 13, 2006http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-02-13-education-panel_x.htm

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Hello. Are you an immigrant? Do you have a history of immigration? Do you support immigration issues? Are you against the hr4437 bill? Speak out VISIT www.studentsresponseshr4437.com A new website where students (and non-students) can speak out on the hr4437 bill. Please foward.Thanks,CeciliaNational Immigrant Solidarity NetworkNo Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.orge-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org New York: (212)330-8172Los Angeles: (213)403-0131Washington D.C.: (202)544-9355Please consider making a donation to the important work of National Immigrant Solidarity Network Send check pay to:ActionLA/SEE1013 Mission St. #6South Pasadena CA 91030(All donations are tax deductible)*to join the immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv, send e-mail to: isn-subscribe@lists.riseup.net or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn*a monthly ISN monthly Action Alert! listserv, go to webpage http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn-digestPlease join our following listservs:Asian American Labor Activism Alert! Listserv, send-e-mail to: api-la-subscribe@lists.riseup.netor visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/api-la NYC Immigrant Alert!: New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas immigrant workers information and alerts, send e-mail to: nyc-immigrantalert-subscribe@lists.riseup.net or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/nyc-immigrantalert US-Mexico Border Information: No Militarization of Borders! Support Immigrant Rights! send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/

TELL BUSH AND CONGRESS: STOP THE WAR ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS! Please join the online campaign to STOP THE WAR ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS! YOUR EMERGENCY ACTION IS NEEDED NOW! Send emails to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Annan, Congressional leaders and the media demanding NO WAR ON IRAN!http://stopwaroniran.org/

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WHY WE FIGHTA film by Eugene Jarecki[Check out the trailer about this new film.This looks like a very powerful film.]http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

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The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonieshttp://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.htmlhttp://www.law.ou.edu/hist/decind.htmlhttp://www.usconstitution.net/declar.htmlhttp://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805195.php

Bill of Rightshttp://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.htmlhttp://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805182.php

2) Wounded Soldiers Fight Off Bill Collectors at HomeCongressman Calls It 'Financial Friendly Fire'; Military Blames Payroll ErrorsHis injuries forced him out of the military, and the Army demanded he repay an enlistment bonus of $2,700 because he'd only served two-thirds of his three-year tour.When he couldn't pay, Johnson's account was turned over to bill collectors. He ended up living out of his car when the Army reported him to credit agencies as having bad debts, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment.http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/story?id=1894152&page=1

8) AN OPEN LETTER TO THE AFL-CIORegarding the 'Solidarity Center' - American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) activities in Venezuela, Haiti, and Iraq.We have a website at http://www.workertoworker.net/GO TO http://www.petitiononline.com/AFLNED06/

WASHINGTON, May 2 — The nascent immigrant rights movement showed on Monday that it could build an organization, mobilize hundreds of thousands of people across the country and wield economic power.

But the protesters do not appear to have achieved their primary goal: changing votes in Congress. And some critics say the demonstration may have generated a backlash, hardening positions on Capitol Hill.

The protests, which began in March and resumed on Monday with a boycott of work, school and shops, have clearly grabbed the nation's attention when the issue of illegal immigration is high on the agenda in Washington.

The heightened attention will make it difficult for Congress to duck the question of what to do with the estimated 11 million to 12 million people living illegally in the United States. Although the outpouring has drawn comparisons to the civil rights movement of the 1960's, questions remain about whether the protesters can translate their passion into political results.

Some companies closed on Monday, yet it is too early to assess the economic effects of the boycott. The effects were diminished because many workers notified their employers ahead of time that they planned to take the day off.

"This was a one-day deal," said Randel Johnson, vice president of the United States Chamber of Congress, which supports bills to legalize immigrants. "If immigrants decided to abandon their jobs for two weeks, that would definitely have an impact."

Some advocates who support "comprehensive immigration reform," the idea that illegal workers should be put on a path to citizenship, say the protests have given that concept an important lift in the debate on Capitol Hill.

Even some immigrant rights backers say few if any minds were changed and called the marches a Rorschach test in which people simply saw their own view reflected in the sea of mostly Latino marchers.

"I have no effective data on this, but it has probably hardened positions and maybe done a little bit of wedging," said Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, a Democrat and former senator who said he supported the protesters' cause. "I think that the people that were really fired up about this still are, and the position that they had to start with, they still carry."

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said: "The protest, I don't think, changes votes on the floor of the Senate. I think what changes votes is coming down, sitting down, talking about it, as opposed to students' staying out of school. I happen to think that students' staying out of school is counterproductive."

The protesters have discovered that there is a thin and potentially dangerous line between promoting national pride and pushing opponents' buttons. They used tactics

— flying the Mexican flag, recording "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish — that have left even some supporters feeling a bit queasy.

"I have a great respect for a lot of the people that did the protesting, but I think their message is all confused," said Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, whose sympathy dates from his childhood, when his mother, an Italian immigrant, was nearly deported. "The flag, the anthem, all that, it got everybody all mixed up. 'Take off work' — it sounded wrong to some people, right to others."

The public is deeply divided on illegal immigration. A survey in March by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, found that 53 percent of respondents said people who were in the United States illegally should be required to go home and that 40 percent say the immigrants should be granted some kind of legal status that allows them to stay here.

"What buttons were pressed?" Roberto Suro, the director of the center, asked, wondering aloud about what Americans saw when they looked at the protesters. "Was it that there are so many people here outside of government control or was it the hard-working family types? I think that's really imponderable."

That divide is reflected among Republicans on Capitol Hill. The House opposes giving citizenship to illegal immigrants, and it has passed a bill aimed only at controlling the borders, while a more comprehensive Senate bill is backed by Republicans like Mr. Domenici, as well as Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John McCain of Arizona, and Mel Martinez of Florida.

Some say the protests have given the Senate approach a boost. "While you could never point to a specific vote, they moved the tone and the thrust where now a balanced bill has the upper hand, and it's in part because of the protests," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said.

The Senate bill collapsed last month amid partisan bickering on procedure, but the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, says he wants to resume the debate this month. On Tuesday, the minority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, offered to limit the debate to 10 amendments a side. Mr. Frist did not accept that, and they continued talks. The Republican split is complicated because not just the immigrants are weighing in. Among their biggest allies are employers, large and small, who want assurances that they will continue to have that labor pool. Business groups are important for the Republican base, and many employers gave immigrant employees the day off on Monday in solidarity with the marchers.

With Republicans so divided, reaching consensus will be difficult.

"Obviously, there's tremendous pressure on lawmakers to fix the problem," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group. "The marches in the street, the public opinion polls that show immigration is one of the top two or three issues in the country.

"But the crosscurrents of politics and policy are such that it's going to take a tremendous push from President Bush and from Democratic and Republican leaders to get this done."

It is clear that the protests have raised some hackles. After the March rally, Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said he was deeply offended by marchers' waving the Mexican flag.

"I want to be sensitive to human concerns, why they're here and how they're here. But when they act out like that, they lose me," Mr. Lott said.

He suggested a risk of deportation and said, "We had them all in a bunch, you know what I mean?"

Julia Preston contributed reporting from New York for this article, and Rachel L. Swarns from Washington.

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2) Wounded Soldiers Fight Off Bill Collectors at HomeCongressman Calls It 'Financial Friendly Fire'; Military Blames Payroll ErrorsHis injuries forced him out of the military, and the Army demanded he repay an enlistment bonus of $2,700 because he'd only served two-thirds of his three-year tour.When he couldn't pay, Johnson's account was turned over to bill collectors. He ended up living out of his car when the Army reported him to credit agencies as having bad debts, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment.http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/story?id=1894152&page=1

April 26, 2006 — - Hundreds of soldiers wounded in battle in Iraq have found themselves fighting off bill collectors on the home front, according to a report to be released tomorrow. The draft report by the Government Accountability Office, which ABC News obtained, said that hundreds of wounded soldiers had military debts incurred through no fault of their own turned over to collection agencies.

"Financial friendly fire," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform. "Because their financial records are so bad, this is a friendly fire where we are hurting and wounding our own."

Army specialist Tyson Johnson of Mobile, Ala., had just been promoted in a field ceremony in Iraq when a mortar round exploded outside his tent, almost killing him.

"It took my kidney, my left kidney, shrapnel came in through my head, back of my head," he recounted.

His injuries forced him out of the military, and the Army demanded he repay an enlistment bonus of $2,700 because he'd only served two-thirds of his three-year tour.

When he couldn't pay, Johnson's account was turned over to bill collectors. He ended up living out of his car when the Army reported him to credit agencies as having bad debts, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment.

And there are many more like Johnson. Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly lost his leg in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq.

He didn't realize it, but the Army continued to mistakenly pay him combat bonus pay, about $2,000, while he was in the hospital rehabilitating, and then demanded that he pay it back.

He, too, was threatened by the Army with debt collectors and a negative credit report.

"By law, he's not entitled to the money, so he must pay it back," said Col. Richard Shrank, the commander of the United States Army Finance Command.

The Army said it moved wounded soldiers out of the battlefield so quickly its accounting office could not keep up, resulting in numerous payroll errors.

"This is no way to win a war, I can tell you that," said Davis. "You'd think after four years after fighting a war in Iraq, the government would have its act together."

But the Army said it is now trying to correct the problem. Since ABC News first reported on the plight of soldiers, featuring Johnson and Kelly in a "Primetime" investigation in October 2004, the Army has forgiven most of their debts.

But Davis said there may be thousands more whose thanks for putting their lives on the line has been a knock on the door from a Pentagon debt collector.

Bolivia's nationalization of its energy industry, announced Monday by President Evo Morales, was a vivid illustration that the populist policies, championed most prominently by Venezuela, were spreading.

The impact on international energy markets is expected to be minimal because Bolivia produces mostly natural gas and exports it to just two countries, Brazil and Argentina.

Symbolically, however, the dispatch of troops to refineries and oilfields threatens to inject more nationalistic fervor into the policies of Bolivia and other energy exporters, in Latin America and abroad.

"We're experiencing the supremacy of emotional politics at this time," Gonzalo Chávez, an economist at the Catholic University of La Paz in Bolivia, said in a telephone interview. "The nationalization was received with great enthusiasm, but we'll have to wait and see how the economic impact of all this plays out."

Many countries have already taken steps to assert greater control over their natural resources, spurred by nationalist politics and lofty energy prices.

Major oil suppliers like Saudi Arabia and Iran nationalized their oil interests decades ago. Russia recently reorganized its domestic energy industries as well. But it is in the Andean region where momentum is quickly building for a greater government role.

Venezuela, a top supplier of oil to the United States, is at the forefront of this trend, recently forcing foreign energy companies to accept state control of important ventures.

Ecuador imposed rules in April that increase the state's share of windfall oil profits, while in Peru, Ollanta Humala, a presidential candidate, has called for a more aggressive government role in natural gas and mining operations.

On Tuesday, Bolivia's vice president, Álvaro García, said major mining companies would also have to pay higher taxes. "There are not going to be company expropriations, of course," he told a local radio station, according to Reuters, "but we're going to assume a greater level of state control."

The government said it expected the nationalization of its energy sector, which includes the second-largest natural gas reserves in Latin America, behind Venezuela's, to raise its annual revenues by more than $300 million, to $780 million.

"I don't think the game is over," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the PIRA Energy Group, which is based in New York and is supported by the petroleum industry. "It's going to move from the Americas to the Africans. This is a very dangerous precedent."

Bolivia's step highlighted the region's changing political landscape, pointing first to the weakening influence of the United States, and to the rising profile of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, who has been empowered by soaring oil revenues.

But it also threatened to open a schism among the region's new wave of left-leaning leaders. Brazil's president, Luis Ignácio da Silva, while nominally left-leaning, has drifted more toward the center since his election in 2002. Now he will have to negotiate a way out of the current crisis for his country, which is one of the biggest investors in Bolivia's energy industry and the main buyer of Bolivia's natural gas.

Brazil announced late Tuesday that Mr. da Silva would meet Thursday in Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, with Mr. Morales and with Argentina's president, Néstor Kirchner, to press for stability in energy supplies and prices. Mr. Chávez may also attend.

The Brazilian state oil company, Petrobras, the nation's largest company, is among the small number of foreign energy companies that will feel the brunt of Bolivia's decision.

At a news conference on Tuesday, André Singer, a Brazilian government spokesman, said Petrobras would maintain its Bolivian operations for the time being, though it remained wary of future investments.

Other energy companies affected include the BG Group in Britain, Repsol-YPF S.A. of Spain and Total of France. The only Bolivian investment of Exxon Mobil, the largest American oil company, is a minority stake in a nonproducing gas field controlled by Total.

The president of Repsol, Antonio Brufau, said the Bolivian decree fell "outside the norms and logic of business that should be the guides for relations between companies and governments."

Companies said they were waiting for more details to emerge and for negotiations or legal arbitration to begin with the Bolivian government, which has given them six months to agree to the new conditions or leave.

For the largest natural gas fields, the decree would give the government 82 percent control, including royalties, taxes and direct stakes, while that level would be lower for smaller fields.

But specifics remain to be clarified, in particular whether infrastructure or assets will be seized without compensation. The decree described earlier policies giving foreign companies a foothold as "treason."

Edward E. Miller, president of Gas TransBoliviano S.A., a company that operates part of the pipeline to Brazil, said people in the energy industry were still trying to make sense of the changes.

"We have military in front of our offices, but they're not doing anything but making sure people don't take anything out of the offices," Mr. Miller said in a telephone interview from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia. "They're not abrasive, they just don't want anyone to leave with laptops or documents."

In taking such a bold step, Mr. Morales appeared to have taken a cue from President Chávez, who has used his oil money to buttress alliances. In Bolivia's case, Venezuela has agreed to supply about 200,000 barrels a month of subsidized diesel, donated about $30 million for social programs and sent literacy volunteers into the Bolivian countryside.

Just a day before his nationalization speech, Mr. Morales entered into a trade agreement with Venezuela and Cuba called the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.

"Chávez is forcing Bolivia into a radical shift," said Roger Tissot, director of markets and countries for PFC Energy, a consulting firm in Washington. "That is the major headache for the U.S."

The Bush administration has quietly tried to engage the new Bolivian government, though that overture and Brazil's efforts to moderate Mr. Morales appear to have had little effect.

A perception that foreign oil and mining concerns have exploited landlocked Bolivia has been a driving force in the country's politics for decades. But it gained new currency after Bolivia and other nations in the region reopened the energy industry in the 1990's.

Since then, there have been boisterous protests and a tide of electoral revolts by voters who felt that the economic benefits had not spread to the poor.

Bolivians have also chafed somewhat at their dependence on Brazil. Petrobras controls 45 percent of Bolivia's natural gas fields, and part of a pipeline that supplies 51 percent of Brazil's need for natural gas.

At the same time, Brazilian companies, eager to expand into neighboring countries, have been struggling to do so without offending their hosts.

"Brazilian companies still do not have a nuanced approach, a diplomatic culture, particularly in relation to smaller countries," Luís Nassif, one of Brazil's leading economic commentators, recently wrote in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. "They are arrogant, like the British before World War II."

Yet while Brazil might feel tremors from Bolivia's decision, it is Bolivia that may be risking its potential as a major natural gas exporter.

Companies had been holding off on investments in Bolivia for some time, unnerved by growing talk of precisely the kind of step that Mr. Morales took this week. Foreign direct investment, much of which goes to energy and mining, fell to $103 million in 2005, from $1 billion in 1999.

What is more, unlike oil, natural gas is not easily exportable, with costly liquefaction facilities, customized tankers or pipelines needed to take the fuel to markets. Chile, a potential market for Bolivian gas, may choose instead a project to import the fuel from as far away as Africa.

Even Brazil, while now reliant on Bolivian gas, has recently discovered large offshore gas reserves of its own. Thus the window of opportunity for Bolivia to become a leading gas exporter may be closing, even as it grows more courageous in its dealings with foreigners.

"If Brazil decides to give the cold shoulder to Bolivia," said Carlos Alberto López, an independent consultant for oil companies in La Paz, "Bolivia will be left with its gas underground."

Paulo Prada and Renwick McLean contributed reportingfor this article.

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4) A Sergeant's Death in Iraq Follows His Fiancée'sBy MICHELLE O'DONNELLMay 3, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/nyregion/03soldier.html

Jose Gomez knew the loss of war. In 2003, his fiancée, Analaura Esparza-Gutierrez, an Army private, died in a roadside bombingin Tikrit, Iraq. So when he was ordered to Iraq for a second tour last July, this time as a reserve officer, he decided to spare his mother by not telling her.

Instead, Sergeant Gomez, 23, invented a detailed ruse that he was studying accounting and economics two days a week at a college in Texas and working. He made regular Saturday phone calls to his mother, Maria Gomez, of Corona, Queens, and insisted on being the one to place the call. When Mrs. Gomez dialed the number and found it disconnected, he gently brushed her off, reminding her that he would call her.

"You've been in the Army these eight months," Mrs. Gomez told her son.

"No, no, I'm not," Sergeant Gomez insisted.

There was no call last Saturday. On Friday, two officers and an English-Spanish translator came to tell her that her son was killed that day in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

"He never wanted me to be hurt," Mrs. Gomez, a petite woman in jeans and a turquoise sweater, recalled yesterday, sitting on a settee in her small living room on 104th Street, made smaller by the presence of a pack of reporters pressing her for details of her son.

Her eyes moistened when she spoke of him, but when she spoke of his deception, she glowed with tenderness and said that her son would go to any lengths for her.

"He was saving money to buy his mother a house; that was his main goal," said Felix Jimenez, Sergeant Gomez's stepfather.

On a side chair sat Marie Canario, 21, wearing the diamond engagement ring Sergeant Gomez gave her at Christmas. He had waited until the last moment before leaving in August to tell her he was going to Iraq. "I was upset, crying," Ms. Canario recalled.

"Don't worry," Sergeant Gomez told her before he left, she said. "You act like I'm not coming back."

"I don't think he wanted to go back," she said yesterday. "He said he didn't want to go."

It was Iraq that dealt Sergeant Gomez, described as a quiet, affable young man who had a knack for numbers, the greatest trials of his young life. He returned home in 2003 nervous and shaken by his combat experiences, his mother said. She took two weeks off from her job packaging automobile air fresheners in a factory on Long Island to take him to Santo Domingo, where he had been born and lived until he was 3.

There, he swam, basked in the sun, visited his older brother, Severino Peralta, 27, and seemed restored by the trip, Mrs. Gomez said.

And he could focus on his engagement to Ms. Esparza-Gutierrez, whom he had met at Fort Hood, Tex. He had nervously proposed to her in the spring.

"Girl, I love him so much," Ms. Esparza-Gutierrez wrote in a May 2003 letter from Iraq to her best friend back home that was quoted in a story by The Associated Press. "I can't imagine sharing life's most precious moment with anyone else."

But on Oct. 1, 2003, Ms. Esparza-Gutierrez, 21, was killed. She was the second female soldier killed in combat in Iraq.

"He was destroyed," Mrs. Gomez said yesterday of her son, recalling how different, once again, he seemed. "When you have a pain like that, you notice it."

Then, the phone rang. It was Ms. Esparza-Gutierrez's mother, Armandina Esparza, calling from Houston. Only once had she met the woman who would have been her daughter's mother-in-law — at her daughter's funeral.

The death of Sergeant Gomez confounded Ms. Esparza. "It's going to be the same as before," she told Mrs. Gomez. She said she was heading off to church to pray for their dead children.

Ms. Canario sat quietly in the corner. Mrs. Gomez looked at her and smiled. Mrs. Gomez said that after her son met Ms. Canario at the Queens Center Mall about a year ago, it was nice to see him happy again.

Mr. Jimenez, unshaven and wearing a white undershirt with khaki pants, stood in a doorway, his arms folded across his chest. For days, he had been urging his wife, who could not sleep or eat, to remain strong.

When asked what the family thought of the war, Mr. Jimenez, a truck driver, wearily leaned his head against the jamb and answered, "Who am I to decide?"

In one of our recent cover stories, we singled a particularly contemptible maneuver by Kasim Reed, a Black Georgia state legislator from Atlanta, who tried to outdo Republican viciousness when it came to proposing punitive measures against immigrants. He authored a bill that would imprison anyone convicted of using a false ID to get a job for five years. Predictably, his proposal was embraced by leading White Georgia Democrats. This is how Georgia’s New Democrats hope to win White votes on the immigration issue.

Mr. Reed, who intends to run for mayor of Atlanta in 2009, is certainly not stupid enough to imagine that he is protecting Black jobs. All the measures to strip foreigners of civil and human rights, to marginalize them and make them fear jail or deportation at a moment’s notice only make them more desirable employees. When given a choice, employers always prefer a fearful, compliant workforce with few or no rights to an aware one with enforceable rights. Just having them around, even if an employer chooses not to hire them, effectively lowers everyone’s wages.

As Black people, we ought to understand better than anybody how White supremacy works and how language, which frames the way we all think, is a potent tool of oppression or liberation. To start with, we need to purge the phrase “illegal aliens” from our vocabulary. Anybody who uses it within earshot ought to be challenged promptly and publicly, just like you would in a case of the unauthorized use of the n-word.

Aliens are from Jupiter. White America defines people as “aliens” in order to justify treatment unfit for a member of the human family, just as our ancestors were once labeled “property,” allowing “owners” to buy and sell us like cattle. For those so unable to free their minds from the box of White racist legalism that they cannot part with the adjective “illegal,” we should insist that they follow it with the correct noun that says what these folks really are. Illegal persons. Illegal people. Illegal humans.

And if “illegal human” sounds ridiculous and evil, as it ought to in any civilized ear, it’s only because White America’s law on this score is evil and ridiculous.

The idea that Black unemployment in the U.S. is “historically unequaled” and the notion that immigrants choose to come here and cause labor market problems for Blacks betray a breathtaking ignorance of human motivation and of the way the global economy works. In recent decades, we have seen the U.S. government openly aid and encourage manufacturing and service industry to shut down facilities and factories here and move them first to Mexico, then to the lowest wage overseas hellhole available. At the same time, billions of our tax dollars are paid in agricultural subsidies to agribusiness companies that dump their goods into Haiti, Mexico, Central America, Africa and Asia, killing the market for locally grown stuff and driving farmers off the land and into the cities where there are no jobs, health care or futures. Unemployment rates in Kingston, Jamaica or Dakar, Senegal are much higher than any experienced in Black America. A few of their daughters find work in the sweatshops. The rest stand around, hustle or starve, or emigrate.

Tens of thousands walk half the length of Africa every month trying to get to Europe. Can you imagine crossing the Sahara on foot? Chinese pay a couple years’ wages in advance to be packed into shipping crates that might or might not arrive here. Others walk from Guatemala and Chiapas, from Oaxaca and Michoacan.

Blacks have been on the bottom as long as there has been an America. Now, the globalized labor market is forcing us to share that bottom with other unfortunate folks. Should we rail against the Mexicans? Should we gripe about the Jamaicans, organize against the Filipinos and Arabs? Employers would like that and Republicans, too, even some Democrats. But we cannot escape the bottom by making common cause with the folks who put us down here.

(Bruce Dixon is the editor of the Black Commentator. He may reached via email at bruce.dixon@blackcommentator.com. Visit the website at www.blackcommentator.com.)

DETROIT, May 3 — Under normal circumstances, a request by union leaders to authorize a strike is routine. But the situation between the United Automobile Workers and the Delphi Corporation is anything but normal.

The U.A.W. said Wednesday that it had asked its 24,000 workers at Delphi, the auto parts supplier that is operating under bankruptcy protection, to vote by May 14 whether to give union leaders permission to call a strike. If union leaders were to order a walkout, not only would Delphi be severely affected, but so would General Motors, which could itself be forced to file for bankruptcy protection as a result, analysts say.

G.M., which lost $10.6 billion last year, spun off Delphi in 1999 and remains its biggest customer. The request by Delphi's largest union came six days before a bankruptcy court hearing, scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday, on the company's request for permission to set aside its labor contracts and impose sharply lower wage and benefit rates.

A ruling could come within about 30 days, but judges often delay a decision to encourage the two sides to reach a settlement.

A strike vote is a procedural tool meant to give union officials clout in negotiations, although a U.A.W. spokesman said Wednesday that the two sides had been more focused on preparing for the coming court hearing than on negotiating in recent weeks.

"It's the equivalent of putting a bullet in a chamber of a gun," said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

Delphi has been pushing for sharply lower wages and benefits since it sought bankruptcy protection, but has put off filing a court motion several times while it continued talks with the U.A.W. On March 31, it proposed cutting U.A.W. members' wages by about $5 an hour, to $22.50, followed by a second cut to $16.50 an hour next year.

That assumes that G.M., which is liable for its former workers' pensions and retirement medical benefits, would provide $50,000 per worker to offset the cuts. If workers do not agree, or G.M. does not come up with the money, wages would fall to $12.50 an hour next year, Delphi said.

At the same time, Delphi said it planned to close 21 of its 29 factories in the United States and eliminate 20,000 of its 34,000 hourly jobs nationwide.

The U.A.W. expressed outrage, but union leaders held off seeking strike authorization, even though workers at the second-largest Delphi union, the International Union of Electrical Workers, have authorized their leaders to call a strike.

The request for a strike authorization was made Wednesday by Richard Shoemaker, the U.A.W. vice president in charge of talks at Delphi, at a meeting with local union leaders in Detroit.

"Dick Shoemaker has said all along that he'd ask for a strike authorization vote when he thought the timing is right, and now he thinks the timing is right," said Paul Krell, a U.A.W. spokesman.

Before it filed its court motion, Delphi reached agreement with the U.A.W. and G.M. on a plan offering buyouts from $35,000 to $140,000 to all 113,000 hourly workers at G.M. and 13,000 Delphi workers, if they will leave their jobs.

Workers originally had 45 days from when their plant first received the buyout offer to decide on it. That meant most workers would have had to decide sometime by mid- to late May. But this week G.M. extended the deadline for all workers to June 23. They then have an additional seven days to change their minds.

On Wednesday, the U.A.W.'s president, Ron Gettelfinger, told Delphi union leaders that 12,400 workers at G.M. and 3,620 workers at Delphi had asked to take the buyouts, or 11 percent and 27.8 percent respectively, said Rob Betts, president of a U.A.W. local in Coopersville, Mich.

Mr. Gettelfinger did not say whether that was above or below expectations, he said.

"I don't think anybody thought we'd be able to judge how this program is being received until we get near the deadline," Mr. Betts said. He added: "Most people are going to wait. The people who already made a decision were going to retire anyway."

Professor Chaison said Delphi might argue that it needed to cut workers' wages and benefits to make up the revenue it was losing from G.M. "Everything is going to fast-forward in this, and it's getting very, very dangerous," he said.

Now, as polls show growing disenchantment with both political parties, the issue of immigration is raised once again, as politicians seek to stir the pot of social resentment.

Voices are raised, tempers are frayed, proposals are launched, and the destinies of millions are apparently held in limbo.

But, in numbers not seen for generations, mostly Mexican-born (or related) families pound the pavements in protest, demanding amnesty for the millions who live and work, in the most thankless jobs, here in the U.S.

The immigration "discussion" masks deeper currents in American life, of those who dread the approaching dawn when those who number the nation's majority are brown, instead of white.

As the government and the servile corporate media hawked fear to trap the nation into the Iraq War, so now fear is once again merchandised for political gain. The perpetual fear of the foreign Other, the fear of Spanish-speaking people, who are called 'criminal' for daring to cross the Rio Grande, to inhabit the lands stolen from their ancestors!

The truth of the matter is that it is highly unlikely that over 11 million men, women, and children will be returned to Mexican territory. That's because businesses, especially those engaged in agriculture, would virtually go out of business, if their immigrant-based work-force up and disappeared.

But, like most people, many Latino immigrants are involved in other businesses and industries in U.S. life. Guess who's doing the lion's share of the work to actually re-build New Orleans? (In case you've not guessed, let me just say it - It ain't FEMA!).

With the exception of Native Americans (as in so-called 'Indians'), and African-Americans, every person in the U.S. today is a descendant of a willing immigrant (OK, strict historians will object that many poor whites, especially in the Southern states, were sent to George and Maryland as indentured servants, as part of a penal sentence).

But, the point is clear. Immigration was consciously used to craft the U.S. as a white nation. For centuries, certain racial groups, like Chinese, for example, were specifically excluded by law from citizenship (like their Mexican counterparts, many Asians were needed in the building of this country as cheap labor).

As law professor Ian F. Haney-Lopez has shown in his book, *White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race* (N.Y.:NYU Press, 1996), American courts and legislatures have consistently defined 'citizens' as 'whites', and over the course of centuries, millions of people were denied entry to the US, or even if allowed in denied citizenship, because they were not 'white.' In 1882, Haney-Lopez explains, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese workers for a decade. In 1884, the Act was expanded to bar all Chinese people, and shortly thereafter an indefinite ban was implemented. State and federal court decisions banned Syrians, Asian-Indians, Palestinians, mixed-race people, and multitudes of others on the basis of insufficient whiteness!

That ugly history may be reborn in this latest 'battle' over Mexican immigration. Political storms have a way of giving way to political hurricanes, that even those who planned them cannot control.

Several years ago, a right-wing politician in California tried to ride the anti-immigrant train to the White House. This man was Pete Wilson, and his playing with fire left him politically burnt. Angry Hispanics in Cali sent him, and some of his colleagues in the Republican Party, into retirement.

But, this era of politicians, trying to create an issue that protects them from the falling numbers of the incumbent Bush Administration, look at Wilson's fate as ancient history.

Perhaps the recent demonstrations, massive in their size, vociferous in their spirit, have given them pause.

Time will tell.

The political entity that truly befriends this growing segment of the US population will have tapped into a powerful social force.

Don't expect it to be either the Republicans or the Democrats.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

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8) AN OPEN LETTER TO THE AFL-CIORegarding the 'Solidarity Center' - American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) activities in Venezuela, Haiti, and Iraq.We have a website at http://www.workertoworker.net/GO TO http://www.petitiononline.com/AFLNED06/

As workers, we know that the only way for us to protect our interests in this age of corporate globalization and US Empire is to stand together in solidarity, across national boundaries.

It troubles us greatly to know that the AFL-CIO, the largest organization representing US workers, has been associated with anti-worker and anti-democratic activities abroad. This has included a history of partnerships with the CIA and State Department in attacking labor groups, and collaborating with dictatorships or supporting the overthrow of elected governments. Two of the best known of these labor/US government interventions led to the overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile in 1973, and the unsuccessful Venezuela coup in 2002.

Today, the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center is one of four core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy, partnering with the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and the Center for International Private Enterprise (Chambers of Commerce). The Solidarity Center is more than 90 per cent funded by the federal government. Most of its funding is from the State Department (via the NED and USAID) and the Department of Labor.

Whatever genuine solidarity work the Solidarity Center has done--and it has done some--it does not give it license to advance corporate interests as an arm of US foreign policy by sponsoring politically aligned labor organizations against progressive trade unionists and popular governments.

In Venezuela, the Solidarity Center worked with and funded what it called the "flagship organizations" behind illegal, company-initiated lockouts of oil workers and the failed coup against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez.

In Haiti, the Solidarity Center has only supported a labor organization that agitated for the ousting of the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, while failing to act against or condemn the massive persecution of pro-Lavalas, pro-Aristide, public sector trade unionists since the 2004 coup. Furthermore, the Solidarity Center's partner in the NED, in line with the Bush Agenda, is the International Republican Institute, which funded, prepared and trained the perpetrators of the coup.

In Iraq, where 50 per cent of NED funding is now directed, the Solidarity Center plays an active role backing a US occupation despised by Iraqi workers. It recognizes only one of several union centers. That federation is the only center participating in the government empowered by the Bush Administration, and the only one to state support for the occupation. Choosing to support one union over others violates the AFL-CIO's own primary principle recognizing the rights of workers to choose who will represent them. That principle is called "Freedom of Association."

These activities are carried out in the name of AFL-CIO rank and file, and are paid for with tax dollars. Whether we are in the AFL-CIO or not, as workers we feel that the AFL-CIO, is OUR organization. It is outrageous that the AFL-CIO accepts funding and backing for its so-called "Solidarity Center" from the Bush Administration or from any administration whose agenda sells out the interests of workers for the sake of corporate interests and political power. We all know that the Bush Administration does not give one dime to any group that does not advance its anti-worker agenda at home and abroad.

The AFL-CIO should never use our credibility as workers to undermine the struggles of workers abroad--to serve as a government weapon for Corporate America. The struggles of workers abroad to improve their conditions are part of our own struggle in the US for a better future. It is totally unacceptable that Solidarity Center activities are done behind the backs of US workers, without any honest reporting and with closed books. It is unaccountable to AFL-CIO unions and certainly to the rank and file. It does not report finances in the manner demanded, by law, of every local union.

We are affronted by the anti-democratic measures that were used by top-level AFL-CIO leaders to prevent a full and honest floor discussion at the 2005 AFL-CIO National Convention in Chicago of the "Build Unity and Trust With Workers Worldwide" resolution. That resolution to account for and end foreign activities tied to government agencies was submitted with unanimous approval by the 2004 Convention of the California State AFL-CIO, representing 2.4 million workers. We cannot accept this distortion of trade union democracy that enables top-level AFL-CIO officials to make deals with the Bush Administration (or any other) to intervene against the will of workers abroad and the sovereignty of nations.

Therefore, in accord with the unanimous vote in the California Labor Federation, we join the call for:

1) The Solidarity Center to immediately terminate its collaboration with the Bush Administration and the NED, withdraw as one of the four core institutes of the NED, refuse to re-enter such relationships in the future and stop all collaboration with the agents of US government foreign policy and corporate globalization;

2) The AFL-CI O to open its books about all projects, past, present, and future, undertaken by the Solidarity Center and predecessor groups that carried out AFL-CIO foreign operations. These would include, but not be limited to, operations that preceded the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002, operations in Haiti leading up to and following the coup, and current activities in and/or related to Iraq. We want detailed reports on a country-by-country basis wherever the Solidarity Center is active--and an immediate termination of any operations that are not specifically intended to help workers in that country.

The "redevelopment" of the communities of the unemploymed, displaced, homeless, undocumented workers, and other marginalized sectors of society is being sponsored by all of the politicians of the ruling class, even their "liberals." The local, state and federal displacement of the Black and poor communities goes hand and hand with the resegragation of the public schools by these same politician. From San Francisco to New York, from New Orleans to Chicago, this is one part of the political and economic agenda of capitalism. Some of the other parts are the rape and plunder of our pensions and healthcare, as US Imperialism's four horsemen of the apocolypse come home to roost upon the people of the United States. The politicians are echoing the famous slogan from the Thomas Nast Tween political cartoon: Boss Tweed : "Let us Prey." (http://www.printsoldandrare.com/thomasnast/210tnast.jpg)

David Brooks weighed in first, in a September 8 column in the New York Times under the title, "Katrina's Silver Lining." How can such a colossal natural disaster that devastated an entire city and displaced most of its population have "a silver lining"? Because, according to Brooks, it provided an opportunity to "break up zones of concentrated poverty," and thus "to break the cycle of poverty."Â The key, though, is to relocate the poor elsewhere, and to replace them with middle class families who will rebuild the city. "If we just put up new buildings and allow the same people to move back into their old neighborhoods," Brooks warned, "then urban New Orleans will become just as rundown and dysfunctional as before."

OK, this is what we expect from the neocons. Enter William Julius Wilson, whose message in The Declining Significance of Race catapulted him to national prominence. In an appearance on The News Hour, Wilson began by diplomatically complimenting Bush for acknowledging the problems of racial inequality and persistent poverty, and then made a pitch for funneling both private and public sector jobs to low-income people. So far so good. But then Wilson shifted to some ominous language:

"Another thing, it would have been good if he had talked about the need to ensure that the placement of families in New Orleans does not reproduce the levels of concentrated poverty that existed before. So I would just like to underline what Bruce Katz was saying and that is that we do have evidence that moving families to lower poverty neighborhoods and school districts can have significant positive effects."Wilson was referring to his fellow panelist on The News Hour,Bruce Katz, who was chief of staff for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration. According to Katz, to build " a competitive healthy and viable city," we need "to break up the concentrations of poverty, to break up those federal enclaves of poverty which existed in the city and to really give these low income residents more choice and opportunity." Finally, it becomes clear what Katz is driving at:

"I think the city will be smaller and I'm not sure if that's the worst thing in the world. I think we have an opportunity here to have a win-win. I think we have an opportunity to build a very different kind of city, a city with a much greater mix of incomes. And, at the same time, we have the opportunity, if we have the right principles and we have the right tools to give many of those low income families the ability to live in neighborhoods, whether in the city, whether in the suburbs, whether in other parts of the state or in other parts of the country, live in neighborhoods where they have access to good schools, safe streets and quality jobs." (Italics ours.)

Stripped of its varnish, what Wilson and Katz are proposing is a resettlement program that will result in a "smaller" New Orleans that is depleted of its poverty population.

This is not all. Together with Xavier Briggs, a sociologist and urban planner at MIT, Wilson posted a petition on the listserve of the Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, under the title "Moving to Opportunity in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina." After some hand wringing about the terrible impact of Katrina, we're presented with the silver lining:

"â€¦ our goal for these low-income displaced persons, most of whom are racial minorities, should be to create a 'move to opportunity.'" Of course, this is followed by the necessary caveat: "we do not seek to depopulate the city of its historically black communities," et cetera, et cetera. But the main thrust of the petition touts "a growing body of research" that demonstrates the "significant positive effects" of "mobility programs" that break up "concentrated poverty." By happy coincidence, Briggs has just published an edited volume, The Geography of Opportunity, with a foreword by William Julius Wilson, which promotes such mobility programs.

The dangerous, reactionary implications of a government-sponsored resettlement program were apparently not evident to the 200-plus signatories, which include some of the most prominent names in American social science: First on the list was William Julius Wilson, followed by Christopher Jencks, Lawrence Katz, David Ellwood, Herbert Gans, Todd Gitlin, Alejandro Portes, Katherine Newman, Jennifer Hochschild, Sheldon Danziger, Mary Jo Bane, to mention some of the names on just the first of ten pages of signatories. With these luminaries at the head of the petition, given their unimpeachable liberal credentials, scores of urban specialists flocked to add their names. But how is the position laid out in the measured language of the petition different from the one expressed by Barbara Bush, Rep. Richard Baker, and David Brooks? This is a relocation scheme, pure and simple. Of course, the petition was careful to stipulate that this was a voluntary program, leaving people with a "choice" to return to New Orleans or to relocate elsewhere. However, as these anointed policy experts surely know, the ultimate outcome hinges on what policies are enacted. If public housing and affordable housing in New Orleans are not rebuilt, if rent subsidies are withheld, thenwhat "choice" do people have but to relocate elsewhere? certain result will be "a smaller and stronger New Orleans," depleted of its poverty population.

Already public officials are crowing about the "new" New Orleans. According to a recent article in the New York Times, "the bullets and drugs and the fear are gone now, swept away by Hurricane Katrina, along with the dealers and gangs and most of the people." Step forward another credentialed expert, Peter Scharf, executive director of the Center for Society, Law and Justice at the University of New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina, Scharf exults, "was one of the greatest crime-control tools ever deployed against a high-crime city," sweeping away, by his estimate, as many as 20,000 participants in the drug culture before the storm.

Here we see the first problem of the "moving to opportunity" discourse. It is a throwback to the crude environmental determinism of the Jacob Riis era, which equated urban pathology with the urban environment, and assumed that a more salubrious environment â€“ more commodious housing, playgrounds, and clean streets â€“ would provide a panacea for the "ills of the city." One Progressive Era book began with the instructive story about a lamppost that had been the site of a rash of suicides. Alas, the authorities removed the lamppost, and poof, the suicides ceased! Does anyone doubt that New Orleans' drug trade will not reestablish itself elsewhere?

On closer examination, the campaign against "concentrated poverty" is a scheme for making poverty invisible. The policy is based on an anti-urban bias that is as frivolous as it is deep-seated, as though the romanticized small towns across the nation are not plagued with the litany of "urban" problems. Wherever there is chronic joblessness and poverty, and no matter its color, there are high rates of crime, alcoholism, drugs, school dropouts, domestic violence, and mental health issues, especially among the poor youth who pass up the option to rescue themselves by joining the army and fighting America's imperial wars. To echo C. Wright Mills, when poverty is spread thin, then these behaviors can be dismissed as individual aberrations stemming from moral blemishes, rather than a problem of society demanding political action.

Besides, what kind of policy simply moves the poor into somebody else's back yard, without addressing the root causes of poverty itself, and in the process disrupts the personal networks and community bonds of these indigent people? Contrary to the claim of the petition, the "careful studies" that have evaluated the "moving to opportunity" programs report very mixed results, and why should one think otherwise?Â Unless the uprooted families are provided with jobs and opportunities that are the sine qua non of stable families and communities, "move to opportunity" is only a spurious theory and an empty slogan.

This brings attention to two other fatal flaws in the logic of "moving to opportunity" policy. It is based on a demonized image of the reprobate poor, who make trouble for themselves and others. Yes, the drug dealers are swept out of the 9th ward, but so are countless others, often single mothers with children, with an extended kin network of siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and that heroic grandmother, who indeed have deep roots in the communities from which they are being evicted. How is it that this Gang of 200, from their ivory towers and gilded offices, presume to speak for the poor? Tossing in a caveat to the effect that "we do not seek to depopulate the city or its historically black communities" must be read literally. They want only to depopulate the city of concentrated poverty, and they will leave intact middle-class black communities that will insulate them from charges of racism.

The great fallacy of the "moving to opportunity" programs is that,by definition, they reach only a small percentage of the poverty population (and typically those who are both motivated andqualified to participate in the program). Left behind are masses to fend for themselves, particularly since the "moving to opportunity" programs are themselves used as an excuse to disinvest in these poor black communities that are written off as beyond redemption. Moving to opportunity becomes a perverse euphemism for policy abdication of the poor people left behind who are in desperate need of programs, services, and jobs.

What is perhaps saddest and most reprehensible about the petition of the Gang of 200 is the solipsistic arrogance on which it rests. This initiative comes at a time when ACORN and other advocacy groups and grassroots activists in New Orleans have championed "the right of return" for even its poorest citizens displaced by Katrina. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, over 140,000 units of housing were destroyed, the majority of them affordable for low-income families. But the Housing Authority of New Orleans has shut down its public-housing operations, and informed landlords of people assisted by federal rent vouchers that government rent subsidies for impacted units have been suspended indefinitely. According to Mike Howells, an organizer with a local human rights group, "sensing an opportunity to enhance the fortunes of real estate interests and to dump a form of public assistance that mainly benefits poor working class locals, Washington and local authorities are using Hurricane Katrina as a pretext for effectively gutting government subsidized housing in New Orleans."

Sure enough, the key player on Mayor Nagin's "Bring New Orleans Back Commission" is Joe Canizaro, a billionaire local developer and one of President Bush's "pioneers," i.e., individuals who raised at least $100,000 for the Bush presidential campaign. The commission initially retained the Urban Land Institute--a real estate development industry organization on whose board Canizaro sits--to propose a framework for pursuing reconstruction. Unsurprisingly, that proposal called for a form of market-based triage. It recommended that reconstruction efforts should be focused in proportion to areas' market value and further suggested that rebuilding of New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward be deferred indefinitely. What else could we have expected? Asking such an outfit how to rebuild a devastated city is like asking a fox how to organize a chicken coop.

As we write, the fate of displaced poor New Orleanians is more precarious than ever. FEMA has terminated rent payments for thousands. Only 20 of the 117 public schools that existed before the hurricane are operating, and 17 of those 20 have opened as charter schools. The school board laid off all the teachers and staff months ago â€“ so much for concerns about poverty. Most of the city remains empty, eerily quiet and covered with a gray, filmy residue that shows how high floodwaters were in each neighborhood. And the eerie quiet underscores the colossal failure of government at all levels to propose a plan for the hundreds of thousands of people who have been dislocated for six months and counting.

Tellingly, the outrage that Canizaro and the Urban Land Institute's proposal sparked among working-class homeowners only reinforced poor people's marginalization. The relevant unit of protest against the ULI plan, its moral center, became home ownership. But what of the tens of thousands who weren't homeowners before Katrina? Who is factoring their interests into the equation? Did Barbara Bush speak for history, ratified by the policy circle at Harvard, when she said, "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them."

The Gang of 200's petition reproduces and reinforces this disregard for the idea that poor people may have, or deserve to have, emotional attachments to a place they consider home. This is one way in which the stereotype of the "urban underclass" --which Wilson in particular has done so much to legitimize--is insidious: it defines poor people's lives as only objects for "our" administration (and just who makes up the circle of "we" anyway?). It effectively divests the poor of civic voice, thus reprising 19th century republican treatment of those without property as ineligible for full citizenship.

Recently, a politically connected white lawyer in the city remarked that Katrina provided an opportunity to rebuild a smaller, quainter New Orleans, more like Charleston. (Charleston, of course, has an ample poor black servant class for its tourist economy, but a white electoral majority.) And speaking of Charleston, a low-income housing project near downtown was condemned and razed after Hurricane Hugo in 1989 because the flood and storm surge supposedly had rendered the land on which it stood too toxic to afford human habitation. The site subsequently became home to the aquarium, a key node in the Charleston's tourist redevelopment. Rumors abound that luxury condos may also now be in the works for the site.

Next, the Gang of 200 will accuse us of defending segregated housing and opposing their proposal to integrate blacks into mixed income and mixed race neighborhoods. This does not withstand even a moment's scrutiny. Without doubt, many poor black people aspire to move to a "better neighborhood," and they should have the option to do so. If the Gang of 200 were serious about helping them, first on their policy agenda would be a proposal for massive enforcement of existing laws against housing discrimination, in order to drive a wedge through the wall of white segregation. The problem here is that relocation is being enacted through a state-sponsored resettlement policy, and notwithstanding promises for "traditional support services," these poor families (and not all of them are poor!), will be relocated in poor, segregated neighborhoods. The only certain outcome is that New Orleans will be depleted of its poor black population in neighborhoods that are ripe for development.

It is astounding that the Gang of 200 do not see the expropriation of poor neighborhoods and the violation of human rights. And they remain strangely oblivious of their potential for playing into the hands of the retrograde political forces that would use their call to justify displacement. Well-intentioned, respectable scholars as they are, they live no less than anyone else within a political culture shaped largely by class experience and perception. And the poverty research industry, of which Wilson is an avatar and leading light, has been predicated for decades on the premise that poor people are defective, incapable of knowing their own best interests, that they are solely objects of social policy, never its subjects.Â Worst of all, they provide liberal cover for those who have already put a resettlement policy into motion that is reactionary and racist at its core.

Adolph Reed is a noted author and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He was Co-Chair of the Chicago Jobs With Justice Education Committee. He serves on the board of Public Citizen, Inc. and is a member of the Interim National Council of the Labor Party, and national co-chair of the Labor Party's campaign for Free Higher Education. Prof. Reed can be contacted at alreed2@earthlink.net.

Stephen Steinberg teaches in the Urban Studies Department at Queens College. His most recent book Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy received the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship. In addition to his scholarly publications, he is a frequent contributor New Politics. Email at ssteinberg1@gc.cuny.edu.

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Is being an American bad for your health? That's the apparent implication of a study just published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

It's not news that something is very wrong with the state of America's health. International comparisons show that the United States has achieved a sort of inverse miracle: we spend much more per person on health care than any other nation, yet we have lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than Canada, Japan and most of Europe.

But it isn't clear exactly what causes this stunningly poor performance. How much of America's poor health is the result of our failure, unique among wealthy nations, to guarantee health insurance to all? How much is the result of racial and class divisions? How much is the result of other aspects of the American way of life?

The new study, "Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and in England," doesn't resolve all of these questions. Yet it offers strong evidence that there's something about American society that makes us sicker than we should be.

The authors of the study compared the prevalence of such diseases as diabetes and hypertension in Americans 55 to 64 years old with the prevalence of the same diseases in a comparable group in England. Comparing us with the English isn't a choice designed to highlight American problems: Britain spends only about 40 percent as much per person on health care as the United States, and its health care system is generally considered inferior to those of neighboring countries, especially France. Moreover, England isn't noted either for healthy eating or for a healthy lifestyle.

Nonetheless, the study concludes that "Americans are much sicker than the English." For example, middle-age Americans are twice as likely to suffer from diabetes as their English counterparts. That's a striking finding in itself.

What's even more striking is that being American seems to damage your health regardless of your race and social class.

That's not to say that class is irrelevant. (The researchers excluded racial effects by restricting the study to non-Hispanic whites.) In fact, there's a strong correlation within each country between wealth and health. But Americans are so much sicker that the richest third of Americans is in worse health than the poorest third of the English.

So what's going on? Lack of health insurance is surely a factor in the poor health of lower-income Americans, who are often uninsured, while everyone in England receives health care from the government. But almost all upper-income Americans have insurance.

What about bad habits, which the study calls "behavioral risk factors"? The stereotypes are true: the English are much more likely to be heavy drinkers, and Americans much more likely to be obese. But a statistical analysis suggests that bad habits are only a fraction of the story.

In the end, the study's authors seem baffled by the poor health of even relatively well-off Americans. But let me suggest a couple of possible explanations.

One is that having health insurance doesn't ensure good health care. For example, a New York Times report on diabetes pointed out that insurance companies are generally unwilling to pay for care that might head off the disease, even though they are willing to pay for the extreme measures, like amputations, that become necessary when prevention fails. It's possible that Britain's National Health Service, in spite of its limited budget, actually provides better all-around medical care than our system because it takes a broader, longer-term view than private insurance companies.

The other possibility is that Americans work too hard and experience too much stress. Full-time American workers work, on average, about 46 weeks per year; full-time British, French and German workers work only 41 weeks a year. I've pointed out in the past that our workaholic economy is actually more destructive of the "family values" we claim to honor than the European economies in which regulations and union power have led to shorter working hours.

Maybe overwork, together with the stress of living in an economy with a minimal social safety net, damages our health as well as ourfamilies. These are just suggestions. What we know for sure is that although the American way of life may be, as Ari Fleischer famously proclaimed back in 2001, "a blessed one," there's something about that way of life that is seriously bad for our health.

Students and activists biked to Bechtel Corp's international headquarters today [May 4, 2006] to say, "No more oil wars, and no more wars for corporate greed!" Following a rally to expose Bechtel's corrupt and immoral behavior, a noisy bike ride and march circled the building. Organizers of the event then attempted to enter the building to make an appointment to speak with CEO Riley Bechtel, resulting in a 45-minute lockdown of the building, with no Bechtel employees being let in or out.

A group of students, activists, and concerned citizens converged on Bechtel today by bicycle and on foot to say, "No more oil wars, and no more wars for corporate greed!" Following a rally then a bike ride and march to circle Bechtel, eight individuals then peacefully and politely caused a 45-minute lockdown of Bechtel's main offices at 50 Beale St, beginning at approximately 2:15 PM and ending past 3:00 PM.

Speakers at the rally addressed Bechtel's exploitation of the Third World, involvement in nuclear test sites, and dubious insider connections to the Bush Administration. These ties include Bechtel CEO Riley Bechtel's position on the President's Export Council, Bechtel board member and senior consultant George Schultz's position as Chairman of the influential Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and Bechtel Senior VP Jack Sheehan's Pentagon-appointed position on the Defense Policy Board. Through connections such as these, Bechtel executives helped to orchestrate the invasion of Iraq and Bechtel is profiting from the war and occupation.

Speakers also highlighted Bechtel's role in water privatization, such as its attempt to privatize water in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which resulted in massive protests which drove Bechtel out of Bolivia. (Bechtel later sued.) They also pointed out that Iraqis want to rebuild their own cities and their own infrastructure, and that we should let them do it.

Cyclists and marchers then circled the building, making noise and raising their voices against Bechtel, corporate greed, and wars fought for corporate profit. Colorful flags and signs demanded, "Bechtel out of Iraq!"

Speakers at the rally included Chelsea Cologne, Livermore Labs organizer; Will Parish, organizer of the August 6 and 9 international days of action against Bechtel; Michael Hoffman, Students Against War SFSU; and Julia Waters, United Students for Global Justice at City College; and Lacy MacAuley, Students Against War SFSU and Campus Antiwar Network.

Students from City College and San Francisco State University began their bike ride at 12 noon, cycling from SFSU, through the City College campus, through the Mission District and on to Bechtel. They arrived at Bechtel's International Headquarters at 50 Beale Street, next to the Embarcadero BART station, at about 1:30 PM.

CAUSING A LOCKDOWN

Following the bike ride and march, Lacy MacAuley, one organizer of the event, which was called "Biking to Bechtel," announced that she intended to go inside the building to seek an appointment to speak with CEO Riley Bechtel, inviting any attendees of the event to join her if they wished. Many attendees went home at that point, and several stayed in front of the building.

Eight individuals, consisting of five female students, two female seniors, and a young man in a business suit, left all signs, flags, and bicycles at the rally site and walked to the south entrance at 45 Fremont St, the second of two buildings that stand "back to back" and house Bechtel's offices. They entered the building, and asked the front desk if they could make an appointment with CEO Riley Bechtel. They were then asked to wait, and eventually told by security that they could not be in the building if they did not have an appointment. The head security woman told the group that they must go to the offices at 50 Beale St to make an appointment.

The group then walked to the south entrance of 50 Beale St and attempted to enter, finding the doors locked. Security personnel were just inside the glass doors and did not make eye contact when the group politely spoke through the glass and asked to enter. The lobby of 50 Beale St contained a front desk and turnstiles. Employees gained access to elevator corridors and therefore the upper floors of the building through electronically-coded name badges.

The group then calmly walked to the north entrance, seeing that that entrance was still open. When they arrived they found the doors locked, but noticed that the south entrance was now open. One student and one senior then walked to the south entrance. When they arrived they found these doors had again been locked. So individuals in the group casually waited at both entrances.

Security personnel responded with a complete lockdown of the building. According to one of the outdoor security persons, this response is apparently a standard one when "protestors" are present. They did not allow employees, delivery personnel, or individuals with other business inside the building to enter or exit. Many employees of the building began accumulating in the elevator corridors visible just inside. Many walked up to the building and, finding it locked, decided to take a walk and do some errands. Others became aggravated that they could not enter the building, making gestures at the security personnel.

At least one employee in the building had also participated in the rally and bike ride around the building. He was forced to wait outside the building with everyone else.

The group of eight on both sides of the building explained to employees that they wished only to make an appointment with CEO Riley Bechtel, and that the response was an overreaction of security since we meant only to conduct valid business within the building.

Finally, after the building had been on complete lockdown for 45 minutes, security personnel gave in to the demands of building employees and opened one small door on the north side and began letting through individuals who had name badges. Students on the north side asked to enter so that they could make an appointment, but were denied entry.

The group then reconvened with others who had been waiting in support at the rally site. Many cyclists then rode away down Mission Street, chanting, "Si se puede! We shut down Bechtel today!"

Global Warming Fastest for 20,000 Years - and it is Mankind's Faulthttp://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0504-08.htm

Public Housing in Private HandsBy MARK LANDLERDRESDEN, Germany, April 28 — Ingolf Rossberg is the mayor of this majestic eastern German city. But watching him stride aroundhis ballroom-size office, wreathed in smoke from his cigarillo, one could mistake him for a European real estate tycoon.Yet he is that after a fashion. Mr. Rossberg reached a deal in March to sell Dresden's entire stock of 48,000 city-owned apartments to an American private equity firm, the Fortress Investment Group, for $1.2 billion. In a single stroke, Dresden wiped out its burdensome public debt."We had to move fast," he said, "because if you had 10 German cities selling their property, it would be a buyer's market."That may soon be the case. German cities are lining up for a mammoth wave of foreign investment in their property. Lured by a German real estate market that is the most stagnant in any major European country, and a vast supply of well-kept public housing, American and other foreign companies have already snapped up dozens of projects in Berlin, Bremen, Essen and other German cities.May 5, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/business/worldbusiness/05property.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Students Are Concerned by U.S. Plan to Sell Their TreesBy FELICITY BARRINGERNEWPORT, N.C., May 4 — "What is the deal with cutting down the Croatan National Forest?" the letter began. "How would you like it if we cut down some trees around your house?"Haley Wester, a sixth grader at the Broad Creek Middle School here, was voicing the sentiments of her classmates and North Carolina's top officials when she wrote Mark Rey, under secretary of agriculture, two months ago to protest his proposal to sell 309,000 acres of National Forest land across the country, including nearly 10,000 in North Carolina.May 5, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/us/05sale.html?hp&ex=1146888000&en=d1aceb19e6ac1710&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bolivian government takes back control of hydrocarbonsBy Jorge Martin - www.marxist.com Friday, 05 May 2006http://www.marxist.com/bolivia-nationalisation-hydrocarbons050506.htm

Neural mechanisms of birdsong memory Johan J. Bolhuis* and Manfred Gahr‡ Abstract | The process through which young male songbirds learn the characteristics of the songs of an adult male of their own species has strong similarities with speech acquisition in human infants. Both involve two phases: a period of auditory memorization followed by a period during which the individual develops its own vocalizations. The avian ‘song system’, a network of brain nuclei, is the probable neural substrate for the second phase of sensorimotor learning. By contrast, the neural representation of song memory acquired in the first phase is localized outside the song system, in different regions of the avian equivalent of the human auditory association cortex. http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v7/n5/pdf/nrn1904.pdf

Miners' ordeal far from over3:00pm: The operation to rescue two miners found alive after five days could now take more than 48 hours.http://newsletters.fairfax.com.au/cgi-bin16/DM/y/e3DR0Nw4M30Bhi0Keqh0EH